[Camlp4] Quotation expander with OCaml syntax

[Raphael Proust <raphlalou@gmail.com>]

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Hi all,

I'm working on a syntax extension as part of an internship in the
Ocsigen team. The aim of the syntax extension is to split the code of a web
application in two separate files: one for the client and one for the
server. A
few transformations are to take place in the process.

Quotations are to be transformed into client code while antiquotations can
refer
to server side values transmitted to the client at runtime.


In order to avoid any XY problems, here is an abstracted and simplified
example
of the expected behavior:

(* Pre-parsed code: *)
let start = <:on< f $y$ >> in
let html_node =
 span ~a:[onclick start] "some text" (* a is used for (html) attributes *)

(* Server side post-parsed code: *)
let start _arg1 =
 "call_closure(some_unique_name," ^ mymarshall _arg1 ")"
in
let html_node = span ~a:[onclick (start y)] "some text"

(* Client side post-parsed code: *)
let _ = register_closure some_unique_name (fun _arg1 -> f _arg1)



If the example isn't clear enough I can detail it a little bit more.


I'm unsure of what is the standard way of doing such a thing in Camlp4. What
I
have in mind is to use the original Ocaml syntax for the quotation expander.
This would (IIUC) allow me to filter the AST to transform every
antiquotation
found inside the quotation itself.

I'm not sure this is the ideal way of doing such a thing because of the size
of
the pattern matching in the AST filter. On the other hand, because the
quotation
is supposed to contain valid OCaml code, it seems normal to reuse the
original
parser.

I considered an alternative solution: treating quotations as raw text (with
a
custom quotation expander) but that would destroy any _loc information and
make
compile time warnings and errors quite difficult to locate.


Is there a simpler/fitter way of doing that? (Is the Y correct wrt the X?)

How can one embed the original parser in a quotation expander? (I couldn't
find
a function of type string -> Ast.expr in the Camlp4 doc/mlis, but I'd be
happy
to be pointed to one if it exists. I think it would at least require some
functor application.)

Does anyone know of any example that resemble what I'm trying to achieve?



-- 
_______
Raphael

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